


From Scratch

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Rooted [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:24:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Scratch

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic contains discussion of rape and violence.

**Seed**

“Oh, fuck no.” She clenched her hands into the arms of the office chair. The room reeked of whiskey and wet towels. 

“Why not?” A small man, stubbled and bathrobed, regarded her mildly from across a scarred oak desk. 

“You don’t get to show up now. After everything, plus an extra pound of shit. ” Nothing hurt. She held up one hand. It was too small, fingernails broken and jagged. The skin was calloused from palm to tip. Worker’s hands. Peasant hands. “Restored to factory settings?” 

“It seemed appropriate.” 

“So what is this? An exit interview? Because I have a few complaints about the company.” 

“I have a deal for you.” 

“What kind of deal?” 

“The kind that means the difference between obliteration and continued existence. Do you know where demons go when they die?” 

“Purgatory?” The skirt she wore was familiar too. The hem was burnt. 

“Nowhere. Like angels, when they die demons are simply...no more.” 

“Ye, here I am.” She smiled, only a little grimly. “So what’s my alternative? Work for you?” 

“No, thank you. i have quite enough staff.” He picked up a glass of whiskey, the ice clinking against the sides. “After so many years of reveling in your own darkness at the very end, you give up your life for good. A life that you value and enjoy. A life you’ve put a lot of energy into continuing.” 

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” She shrugged. “So what? Now I’m redeemable or something?” 

“You’ve always been redeemable. There is no point of no return. Yet, you have never quite understood the error of your ways. Never truly repented.” 

“How can I repent if I’m not sorry?” 

“Here’s my offer. I will return you to earth in this flesh, slightly revised for the modern era. I will give you a single task to complete and I will even offer you help in completing it. If you manage it, you will be rewarded. If you fail...” 

“Obliteration.” She grimaced. 

“It’s a good deal. Obliteration is on schedule for you as we speak. I’ve frozen the moment of your death so we could have this chat.” 

“This is some kind of joke isn’t it? I’ve torn at the root of humanity for years, soiled their souls and worked to free Lucifer at every turn. Why offer me anything at all?” 

“Because it was requested of me by one who is beloved to me.” He drank deeply and set down his glass. “Will you take the offer?” 

She studied her hands, mottled ugly things. Nothing like the powerful talons of her demon’s form or even the pretty kept ones of her favored mortal vessels. To be returned to this state, pitiable and dull was an insult and a message. He could do what he pleased with her. The choice was no choice at all. She had always preferred to live. 

“What do I need to do?” 

“Hold out your hand.” 

She extended it warily, palm upward, to him. He took it gently in both of his. His hands were small, the fingernails bitten. He spread her fingers wide until her palm arched upward. Then he spat. A single wet seed landed in the center of her hand. 

“Did you just hock a loogie on me?” 

“This is your task.” 

“A seed?” 

“For an apple tree. It should be a pomegranate, but given where you’ll be settling, an apple tree will fare better. I want you to harvest an apple.” 

“That’s it?” 

“I believe you will find it harder than you’d suspect. Gardening is very tricky. I should know.” He closed her fingers around the seed. “I will send three people to aid you. You must treat them well or they will not give you the help you need. They won’t know their task and you won’t know how they are until the task is done.” 

“Right. So I have to be nice to everyone because they might be my knight in shining armor.” She snorted. “Not very original.” 

“But effective.” He hands slid away and she almost reached for them though she couldn’t say why. “Are you ready?” 

“Will I remember?” 

“Of course. Erasing your memories would be missing the point. You must do this as you are, not as what you might have been.” 

“Was it Castiel who asked you?” 

“Good luck, Meg.” He leaned back in his chair and set his feet on the table. He was wearing fuzzy slippers with a Wily E. Coytoe head on one foot and Road Runner on the other .

Everything faded. She drifted for a heartbeat in darkness and then there was a door. White with a curved ‘9’ on the front. When she tried the knob, it opened into a sunny apartment decorated in whites and greens. 

“Oh my God, sorry!” A young woman, her blond hair back in a high ponytail emerged from the hallways. “You must be Meg. I’m Becky.” 

“Hello.” Meg said cautiously. 

“I thought you were coming at eleven. I mean, Chuck said eleven, but he’s not good with time so it’s not surprising he forgot. Honestly, I was beginning to think he was dead, but then he called me out of the blue to ask a favor.” There were dark circles under Becky’s eyes and a forced rictus of a smile on her face. “Boys, right? Anyway. Let me show you the second bedroom. It’s not much, but the rent is pretty cheap especially with splitting.” 

“Right.” Meg followed her down a small hall. There were sigils carved into every doorway. Wards against demons and angels alike. None of them so much as tingled. She trailed her hands over a devil’s trap. 

“Chuck said you know all about this stuff, right?” Becky nodded at the markings. “It won’t weird you out?” 

“No.” Meg let her hand drop and walked right on by. Mortal then. She took a deep breath and exhaled it. She’d need to do that now. Every second of every hour of every day. Breath and drink and eat and sleep and shit. Lovely. “They’re well done.” 

“Thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice.” Becky pushed open a door. “So this would be your room.” 

It was empty, but for a bare mattress on springs, a small chest of drawers and a bare bulbed lamp. There were curtains on the window though and it looked out onto a grassy backyard. 

“The bathroom is across the hall. We’ll be sharing. I usually shower at night though, so if you’re a morning person we should be ok. I work as a night receptionist at the local clinic, so you know. If you have a day job we won’t be in each other’s hair at all. Chuck said you had a job.” 

“Did he?” There was something sharp in her left pocket. Meg dug out a letter. “Oh, very funny.” 

“What?” Becky leaned in. “What is it?” 

“I’m a nurse at your clinic apparently. I start on Monday.” 

“Oh! I didn’t realized we’d be working together. That’s nice. But it only gives you two days to settle in here.” Becky smoothed a hand over the mattress. “Can you move in that soon?”

“I don’t have anything to move.” 

“Nothing?” 

“No.” She bit back a snarl. She had never needed more than she could carry on her. Things weighed you down. “I had to leave my last place in a bit of a hurry.” 

“Yeah.” Becky smiled thinly. “I sort of get that. Do you have any money?” 

There was a wallet in her other pocket. There was a driver’s licence for ‘Meg Browning’, forty dollars in cash and a debit card with a slip tucked around it. Apparently she’d withdrawn the forty dollars two days ago with a remaining balance of two hundred. 

“Little bit.” 

“Well, rent isn’t due for a few weeks. We should get you some sheets and a toothbrush at least.” 

“I can-” But she stopped. Clearly she couldn’t do it on her own. Going by the letter, they were in a town called Acorn in the middle of New England. Probably no public transportation. “You got a car?” 

“Sure. Got to have one to get anywhere really. Oh! If you work the same shift as me, we can car pool!” 

“Great.” Meg said dryly though Becky seemed not to notice the tone. 

“We’ll go out to 17. Plenty of shopping there. Anywhere you want to go in particular?” 

Meg reached back into her pocket and there, tucked all the way in the corner, was the seed. 

“Any gardening stores?” 

By the end of the night, Meg had determined that Becky had lived alone too long. The girl monologued her way through three stores, anxious pressurized speech about nothing at all. Meg let her ramble on, absorbing what seemed important and tuning her out the rest of the time. Instead, she focused on maximizing her microbudget. Though her theory of modern humanity was sound, unlike a few other immortal creatures she could mention, there were still things that baffled her. 

“We can go clothing shopping when you get your first paycheck.” Becky offered as she looked at the meager bags. 

“Yeah.” She slumped exhausted in the passenger seat and watched the neon signs drip by. Fatigue rattled in her bones, new and unwelcome. “Thanks.” 

“Is it a guy that you’re running away from?” Becky asked and for the first time, left a space afterward for Meg to answer. 

“I’m not running.” She smiled faintly. “Actually, for the first time, I’m standing still.” 

When they returned home, Meg took her things back to her empty room. She dressed the bed in red sheets and a comforter in fresh cream. Under the light of the bare bulb, she filled a plastic pot with soil mottled through with white food pellets. Making a depression with her thumb, she gently dropped in the seed in the hole. 

“You better grow.” She told the tiny curve of possibility. Then she covered it up with more soil. In the bathroom, she filled her cupped hands with water and brought them back to drip over the dirty. The smell of rich earth rose up. 

_Watch carefully, said her father, this is the way you do things, little one. This how we have always done things. This is how we stay alive. A divot, a seed, a prayer, water and sun. We tend the earth and the earth will tend to us._

**Sapling**

“There’s a boy in exam room two that needs a few stitches.” Dr. Mayhew brushed his hair out of his eyes for the tenth time that day. He was too young for the job and perpetually harried. “Can you get it, Miss. Browning?” 

“Yes.” She cast away her cigarette, grounding it under her heel. Her new lungs didn’t care for the smoke or tar, but Meg enjoyed the tiny flicker of flame, the ritual of the first long drag and the brief privacy it gave her by the dumpster in the middle of the night. 

Returning to the clinic brought with it the inextricable odor of illness punctuated by stringent cleaners. Becky was talking to a weeping woman, but she spared Meg a small wave as she walked by. Meg acknowledged her with the slightest nod. 

The chart on the door said the boy was named Ryan. He’d apparently fallen off his bike and torn a ragged cut on his forehead. He sat, small and alone on the table, blood dripping into his eyes. 

“Hello, Ryan.” 

“Hi.” He shifted uneasily under her scrutiny. “Are you the nurse?” 

“So they tell me.” She had figured she’d have to fake it when she began working, but apparently divine intervention came with Matrix-like upgrades because she had roughly a bachelor’s worth of nursing knowledge stuffed in her head. “Can I clean that up for you?” 

“Will it hurt?” 

“It’ll hurt a lot more if you let the blood dry and try to chip it off later.” 

He sat quietly as cleaned the wood. The bleeding had gone sluggish and slow, convinced to coagulate as she pressed a pad to it. 

“So who did this to you?” 

“I fell off my bike.” He said tiredly. “Just like I told the doctor.” 

“Uh huh.” She applied a numbing agent to the skin. “So how come your hands look ok? They should be mess if you tried to stop yourself.” 

“Maybe I didn’t.” 

“Can’t help it. One of those reflex things. You’d be better off if you told us you walked into a door.” 

“I fell off my bike.” He repeated, less sure now. 

“No skin off my nose. We’ve got to wait a few minutes for the skin to go numb.” She settled back on her chair and looked at him. “How old are you?” 

“Twelve.” 

“Uh huh. And you were riding your bike in the middle of the night?” 

“Coming home from a friend’s house.” He folded his arms around himself. 

“And you rode yourself over here too?” 

“Didn’t want to wake anyone up. My Dad works a lot. He needs to sleep.” 

“Sure.” She looked him over slowly. “You have trouble sleeping?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“I think you should tell Dr. Mayhew about that. He’ll come back in to check the stitches. You don’t drink, do you?” 

“What? No.” Rick snorted. “I’m twelve.” 

“Hey, some twelve year olds are precocious. Cause you know, if you were to grind up one of those pills and take it with a beer, it would knock you for a serious loop.” She prepared the floss and needle. “And you probably wouldn’t even taste the pills.” 

“Oh.” He watched for a long moment before the lightbulb came on. “Are you...can you tell me that?” 

“It’s just a little medical advice. Lean forward.” 

Stitches were easy. She liked the neat line they left behind, easy and fixed. She left a note on Ryan’s chart about the insomnia and tried to ignore the growing pulse in her lower back. She’d felt bloated for the last few days and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening. Luckily, she’d swiped a few feminine hygiene products from the supply room the week before. Stopping into the staff bathroom, she took out the tampon she’d stashed in her pocket. 

There were already a few spots of blood in her underwear, vicious red against the white. It staggered her. Not the blood itself really. That she had been steeped in since time out of memory. She liked blood, even her vessels’. It meant that the suffering was real and tactile. 

But the last time she had bled like this, it had meant much more than the passing of another month. 

_It’s for the best, said Agnes with her hair spilling around her face, what kind of mother would you be, you heartless beast?_

“Meg?” Becky knocked on the door. “You ok?” 

“Fine.” She bit off, inserting the tampon with a vicious twist. 

“Um. Ok. Just checking. There’s a patient in room five that asked for you. Hope that’s ok.” 

“Yes.” She washed her hands and splashed water over her face. The mirror showed her someone too small to contain what she had been. A fragile body, built to 9th century proportions, with a pert nose and close set green eyes. Already she’d dyed away the dirty blond of her hair into a dark red that suited her better. 

There was a woman in room five, stick limbed and shaking, but she smiled when Meg came in. 

“Hello.” Meg reached for her chart. “How can I help you?” 

“You already have.” The woman took Meg’s free hand between her own. “I only came to thank you. I know you don’t remember me, it was only a few weeks ago and I think it was your first night here you were so frazzled, but I wanted to say thank you anyway.” 

“Mrs. Kutz?” Meg glanced at the chart. “Oh. You weren’t eating.” 

“You told me that I had to get my head on straight. That if I didn’t change my life, I would die and I was so furious at you, but I went home and I cried and I talked to my husband. I went into rehab the next day. I’m not through yet and probably won’t be for a long time, but I just wanted to say thank you anyway.” She brought Meg’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “You said what I needed to hear, even it was ugly and it hurt. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” Meg pulled away, skin suddenly too tight. 

“Bless you.” Mrs. Kutz gave her a last smile, then slipped away. 

The rest of the night was routine, but Meg never quite got back in the rhythm. Her back tied itself into knots and her head spun. Dr. Mayhew didn’t notice, but Becky did. By the time dawn came around, she was nearly beside herself. Meg couldn’t figure out why since she’d never given Becky a lick of a reason to give a shit. If anything, she generally ignored her even when they were driving together to work. 

“You seem really upset.” Becky flitted around the car, unlocking it on the second try. “I know I talk a lot, but I can be a good listener too, I swear.” 

“I’m fine.” Meg slumped into the passenger seat. When Becky shot her another anxious look, she threw her a bone. “Period cramps.” 

“Oh!” Becky brightened as if it explained everything. “I’ve got a heating pad I can lend you when we get home. That always helps me. I was going to make pancakes for dinner, you want some?” 

She started to say no as she always did then hesitated. She hadn’t eaten anything since they’d come to work, using her lunch break to smoke and drink a large coffee. If she went to sleep like this, she’d probably wake up with a headache and shaky. She hated being shaky. 

“Sure.” 

“Great!” Becky drove home with a grin on her face and her mouth shut for once. It was nearly peaceful. 

When they got home, Becky dug out a heating pad and plugged it in on the couch. Then she handed the remote to Meg and retreated into the kitchen. It took a few minutes for the pad to warm up, but once it did....bliss. Meg sank into the heat and started flipping idly through shitty early morning television. She settled on an odd cartoon of two children gallivanting around with Death. Who had a Jamaican accent. It suited him, actually. 

“The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy! I love this one.” Becky emerged a few minutes later, handing Meg a plate. “I didn’t know you liked cartoons.” 

“Neither did I.” She put the remote down and dug into the layers of pancake. It smelled amazing, studded with chopped up strawberry. “I don’t watch much tv.” 

“Strict parents growing up? Mine only let me watch an hour a week.” 

“Not strict exactly. More like hippies.” The lie felt right, nearly close to the truth actually. “We lived on a commune. Lot of farming, no electricity.” 

“Wow, I can’t even imagine that.” 

“It seems like a long time ago now.” She forked pancake into her mouth, the burst of sweetness mingling with the slightly sour strawberries. “These are good.” 

“Thanks!” Becky grinned from ear to ear. “I’m more of a baker than a cook.” 

“I don’t really do the kitchen.” 

“I can show you how to make cookies. They’re pretty simple and they’re great for when you feel shitty.” 

Meg didn’t get a chance to decline. Becky was already on her feet, fleeing back to their small kitchen and pulling out ingredients. Meg finished her breakfast and the cartoon changed into something with too many flashing lights and not enough plot. Reluctantly, she brought her dirty plate into the kitchen. 

“Here,” Becky thrust a bowl into her hands after removing the plate “dry ingredients first.” 

“Why not mash it all up together at one time?” 

“Way harder to stir.” 

It didn’t take long for Becky to assemble a sticky dough. She handed Meg a spoon and showed her how to plop round mounds onto a baking sheet. 

“I used to do this with my Mom.” Becky pat down one small round with a finger. 

“She died?” Meg asked, barely listening. 

“No. She left.” Becky shrugged with one shoulder. “There were three of us kids and I guess we drove her kind of crazy. My Aunt wound up raising us, along with her four girls.” 

“Oh.” Meg watched the dough fall off the spoon. The silence hung expectantly around her. “That sucks.” 

“You get over it.” Becky shrugged. “I kept waiting for someone to rescue me, you know? A white knight with a heart of gold or something. If I just waited long enough....” 

“No one ever comes.” Meg shook her head. “You have to save yourself.” 

“Yeah, I’m starting to figure that out.” Becky brushed back her bangs. “I’m a little slow with that stuff sometimes.” 

“I’ll remind you.” 

“Guess you learned to be self-sufficient on that farm, huh?” 

“Not as much as I should have.” 

_You’re mine now, Lucifer’s voice curled around her as Alistair took her down off the rack with gentle hands, we’ll do such things together._

They ate the cookies on their small patio, burning their fingers and washing them down with cold milk. Becky handed her two Motrin as they ate and told her about the first time she’d gotten her period, how she’d thought that she would die from the bleeding. Meg couldn’t tell her about the celebration on the day of her first menstruation. How it meant that she could finally be married off at the price of a few sheep, enough to keep her family alive for a few more winters. 

“Me too.” She said instead. “I cried.” 

“I can’t imagine you crying.” Becky licked choclate off her fingertips. “You’re too tough for that.”

“Everyone cries.” Even demons, in the quiet of another long night on a hard bathroom floor when the last of hope had died. “Even guys built like brick shithouses. Some of us just learn to do it when the lights are out.” 

Things were a little different after that. Becky approached her more often, a movie in hand sometimes or food or a question. Meg still said no more often than not, but occasionally a yes came out despite herself. 

“Um.” Becky stood before her, hair damp around her shoulders. “I’m thinking of dyeing my hair and you do such a good job with yours, would you mind helping me?” 

“What color?” 

“Um, black?” She held up a box of dye. “Will it wash me out?” 

“Probably. Let’s find out.” Meg snatched up the dye. 

It was weirdly intimate to run a comb through another woman’s hair. Meg watched Becky’s face in the mirror, how she squinted at her own reflection and bit her lip when Meg caught a snag, but didn’t protest. They blew it out when the dye had set. The black did wash Becky out a little, but it also sharpened the lines of her face and took away some of the permantely startled look to her eyes. 

“I like it.” Becky decided, running her fingers through it. 

“Yeah, so do I.” 

In black and red, they went to a bar together for the first time. The men circled them with clear interest, but Becky seemed oblivious. She was gawky and flushed after only two drinks. Meg eyed the dance floor, saw the predators there that she could no longer fight off. Though her body hummed and the idea of sex was tantalizing, she stayed by Becky’s side and warned off potential trouble makers with a narrowed eye glare and a brief touch to the knife she had tucked in her boots. 

They stumbled into a cab together, Becky clinging to Meg’s arm. 

“You’re a good friend.” Becky confided as they slumped onto the cracked vinyl. 

“Yeah.” Meg snorted. “Guess I am.” 

The next morning, Becky practically crash landed on Meg’s bed with a groan. 

“Tell me you have a hangover cure.” 

“Not to drink?” Meg shrank away. Her bed had become sacrosanct, an inviolable space where she had no choice, but to be vulnerable for long unconscious hours. 

“Ugh.” Becky groaned, lifting her head up as though it weighed a thousand pounds. “Coffee. That creepy tar stuff you make.” 

“You make it.” Meg kicked at her. 

“Pleeeease.” 

“Stop making that sound, fuck, I’ll do it.” Meg got to her feet and discovered her own stomach wasn’t exactly thrilled. Coffee sounded about right. She returned with two full mugs to find Becky staring at the stick with its sparse leaves listing a little in its teroccata pot. 

“You should plant it.” Becky took her mug with a smile and a wince. “I mean, it needs more light and soil and stuff. You can put in the backyard, no one will care.” 

“It won’t hurt it?” Meg touched a single leaf. She’d read numerous horticulture books though they bored her stupid. Intellectually she knew that the twig would have a better shot at life outside, but she preferred checking it over every night before going to bed. 

“Nah. It’ll be fine. We can stop by the gardening place on the way to work tonight.” 

Meg spent a lot of time on the internet that afternoon. The garden store had everything including an employee willing to help though he clearly thought Meg had lost her mind. She asked a thousand questions and almost hacked at him with a convenient pair of garden shears when he pointed out that planting multiple trees was the only way to guarantee the survival of at least one tree. 

“It’s this one.” She ground out. “It has to be this one.” 

“I get it.” Becky said once the car was loaded up. “It’s the little stuff sometimes. You think, if I can get just this one thing...” 

“Yeah.” Meg’s nails bit into her palm, a soothing pain. “Just this one thing.” 

It rained the next morning, but Becky stood out in the downpour with her, digging the hole and driving the stakes into the ground to steady the precarious lean. When it was done, Becky put her muddy hands to the bare turn of Meg’s elbow. 

“It looks happier already.” 

“Trees don’t have feelings.” Meg countered, but she didn’t shake Becky away. They stood there together, getting wetter and colder until the thunder started rolling in. 

**Pole**

“I’m home!” Meg called out, setting heavy bags on the kitchen table. Music trickled in from the patio. She put away the groceries, shoving them in where they fit. Becky would reorganize them later, but this way she’d at least made an effort. 

Courtesy was a pain in the ass. She poured herself a drink and went out to the patio. Becky was spread out in the longer, a magazine open on her lap. The tree, still leaning a little to the left, did its best to shade her, but wasn’t having much luck considering it only had about eight branches. 

“Hey.” Becky flipped a page on the magazine. 

“What’s up with you?” Meg hooked her foot around a chair and dragged it closer. 

“Nothing.” Becky flipped another page hard enough for it to tear. 

“I’m going to call bullshit on that.” 

“It’s stupid. Like stapling your fingers together stupid.” 

“I already think you’re dumb, so really it can’t lower my opinion of you.” 

“Says the girl who microwaved a spoon last week.” Becky flicked the comment away with the wave of her hand. She’d become immune to Meg’s biting comments, filtering them through as friendly tussling. 

“I created lightening, I think that was the more impressive point to concentrate on.” She sipped her drink. “So what’s up?” 

“I got a call from someone I hadn’t heard from in a long time today. I was awful to him...like I should have been sent to prison awful.” 

“You don’t have it in you.” Meg snorted. 

“I raped him.” Becky threw her magazine to the ground. “I mean, no one ever called it that. He wouldn’t call it that, but I did. I took away his will with a stupid potion, nearly lost my soul just to pretend for ten minutes someone gave a shit about me. If I’d been a guy they probably would have slugged me. Locked me up and I would have deserved it. The worst part was that I didn’t figure that out for the longest time. I’m a total idiot.” 

“You’re not.” Meg set down her drink and pulled Becky’s hands away from her face. She was probably holding her wrists too hard. “You’re not an idiot. You made a crossroad deal, right?” 

“Yeah.” Becky sniffled. 

“Demons have tricks, ok? They know exactly what you want and they know how to get you to agree to it. They manipulate you, make you think about things you’d normally never do. They know where you’re weak.” 

“But I agreed.” 

“Yeah and you’re really fucking sorry about it, right?” 

“So sorry.” Becky sobbed, tears spreading down her cheeks now. “I thought if he could just really see me then he’d love me. He’s a good man, you know? The best and I thought if he could see me and I could matter...But what I did to him is unforgivable.” 

“There’s no such thing.” Meg held on harder, probably leaving bruises. “You’re redeemable. You can be forgiven. Trust me on this, if I can be then you sure as hell will.” 

“I raped him.” Becky repeated as if the words themselves were foreign on her tongue. As if it was a thought never voiced before. 

“And you’ve paid for it every day since you put it together, right? You don’t sleep right, you feel like shit and you’re all fucked up just from hearing his voice. I bet you even tried to apologize.” 

“On the phone today, a hundred times before that.” Becky shuddered. “He keeps telling me that its fine and he just doesn’t want to talk about it.” 

“You’ll have to take his word for it then.” She let go of Becky’s wrists, red now. “Come on, get up and wash your face. Its no use spilling tears over it. What’s done is done.” 

Becky sniffled her way through the chicken soup Meg nuked for her, then shuffled into her room. Probably not to sleep, but Meg wasn’t going to chase after her. Instead, she found a Law and Order marathon to heckle while she did her nails. 

_Please don’t, pleaded a nameless boy too far from home, I’ll do anything._

Dark purple with silver glitter dotted through, slick and easy. 

_It hurts, moaned a girl with cornflower eyes, please stop!_

Top coat, clear gloss to hold the color in. 

_Why are you doing this?, asked a woman teeth red with blood, There’s nothing left for you to take._

She blew gently over her fingertips, watched the paint dry hard as glass. 

_And the first one, the man who had taken it from her first, who said nothing. Only screamed so loud that it scared the birds from the trees and sent the foxes underground._

Leaning back on the couch, she crossed her legs over one arm and stared at her knees. Cupped at her crotch, the heat pooling there. Someone had asked to give her redemption. Someone that knew what she was had done. Someone who still believed in forgiveness. 

“I’m sorry.” She tested the words on her tongue. They were bitter there and too heavy. She repeated it anyway. “I’m sorry.” 

A knock on the door startled her. Her thumb, still tacky, smeared a little as she wrestled to get up. 

“Who is it?” She barked. 

“Um, I’m looking for Becky? My name is Garth?” 

“Becky!” Meg shouted. “Are you expecting a guy?” 

“What?” Becky called back, coming out with red eyes and her old pink bathrobe. 

“There’s a guy named Garth who’s here to see you?” 

“Oh.” Becky frowned, stepping to the door, opening it a too trusting crack. Then again their were enough sigils around the doorway to stop even Crowley in his tracks. “Can I help you?” 

“You’re Becky Rosen?” He was a slip of a man with a nose that put him in competition with Cyrano and a haircut done at home with a misshapen bowl. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I was asked to add you to my rounds. Check up, you know, make sure you don’t have any pest problems.” 

“Pests?” 

“I think he means monsters.” Meg lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not like any hunter I’ve ever seen.” 

“All shapes and sizes, m’am.” Garth shrugged. “Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you. Technically, I should just drive by, but I realized that freaked people out more.” 

“Did Sam send you?” Becky choked out. 

Son of a bitch. Meg stared at Becky, tried to imagine her controlling the beast of a Winchester with love potions and pure will. It was surprisingly easy to see. Sam was a weak man in so many ways, ways that Meg had poked and prodded at. And Becky was a force to be reckoned with when she put her mind to it. It didn’t much surprise Meg that she’d been fostered out to someone who knew the Winchesters. She’d already put together the joke of her last name. 

“Well, yeah. They’re getting real close to their goal and they’re worried people they know might get snatched up as bait, so I promised I’d check in on everyone.” 

Meg wanted to ask how it had taken so damn long. She’d practically fed them the answers they’d needed, but if she opened her mouth now it would blow her cover entirely. 

“That’s nice of you.” Becky opened the door wider, reaching for the flask they kept by the door. She splashed him perfunctorily with holy water. “Finger.” 

“Wow, you know your stuff.” Garth offered his hand and didn’t wince when Becky pricked him with the silver knife. “Who trained you?” 

“I read the books.” She shrugged. “You want something to eat before you go.” 

“Oh, no, you don’t have to-” 

“It’s fine.” Becky opened the door wider. “There’s soup and bread.” 

“Thank you.” Garth came in slowly, casing the place. He held himself ready and Meg gave him a few points back for wariness. Maybe he really was a hunter. “Soup would be nice.” 

Meg sat down across from Garth. If he was unnerved by her gaze, he didn’t show it. 

“So no oogie-boogies lurking around?” He asked, breaking the piece of toast Becky handed him in half. 

“Nothing I’ve noticed. Meg?” 

“I haven’t seen anything, but if they’re any good at surveillance, we wouldn’t.” 

“I’ll make sure to case the block before I go.” Garth dipped the bread into the soup, watching it wick up. “I’ve got a route set up, I’ll be by every third week for now unless they dredge up other names for me.” 

“What happens when they’re big thing is all over?” Becky sat down beside him, arms folded over her chest. 

“Everything changes....and nothing changes.” Garth sighed. “I really can’t tell you. For your own safety. But if everything goes right, you won’t notice anything on a day to day basis. You should sleep a lot easier at night though.” 

“Yeah.” Becky snorted. “Like that’s happening any time soon.” 

“Hey,” Garth touched Becky’s arm lightly, “I know I can’t make any promises, but we’re doing everything we can to make the world safer.” 

“Isn’t everyone?” Meg asked dryly. 

“But not everyone can kick ass and take names like a hunter.” Garth smiled, one half of his mouth rising before the other. “You do know the Winchesters, right?” 

“Meg’s not from around here.” Becky supplied. 

“I’ve heard of them.” She shrugged. “Big time hunters. Heard they travel with an angel.” 

“Sometimes.” Garth finally picked up a spoon and set into his soup. “Haven’t seen him around lately though. Then again he’s kind of cagey.” 

“You’ve met Castiel?” Becky’s eyes went wide. “I mean, I read about him and everything and Chuck said he was a ‘compelling character’. I always thought it’d be nice to meet him.” 

“He’s abrupt mostly.” Garth laughed. “Sort of a rush rush rush practical sort of guy. He’s not exactly friendly. Smells like ozone.” 

Meg picked at her the smudge on her thumb. It peeled upwards in one satisfying strip. 

After that, Garth became another part of their schedule. Wake up around six in the evening, shower, eat breakfast and pack lunch, drive to work, heal the sick and wash the feet of lepers until dawn, run errands, catch a movie or shop, come home and watch crap television until it was time to sleep and do it over again. On their days off, Meg would water the apple tree and watch its blooms for any hint of actual apples. It was a hopeless wish. Three to five years for an apple tree to yield fruit and the fragile thing was just nearing two. 

Garth wove seamlessly in with the clockwork of their lives. Every three weeks, always on their day off, he would appear at the door. After the first time, he always brought a gift with him, usually in a protective vein. Stones, three legged pig statues, a voodoo charm and a bracelet supposedly woven of unicorn hair. It was always to Becky that he handed the trinkets and she arranged them in a bizarre shrine-like configuration by the front door. 

“Dean says they knew a demon named Meg once.” Garth told them, the remains of tacos spread out on the table. “She died to save them.” 

“I didn’t think demons did things like that.” 

“They don’t.” Meg spooned up salsa. “If she gave herself up for them, it was only because she had something bigger to lose otherwise.” 

“I don’t know.” Garth studied her gravely and she met his gaze as levelly as she could. “Maybe even demons are redeemable.” 

“Well, Meg says everyone can be forgiven.” Becky beamed at her. “It’s probably the only optimistic thing I’ve ever heard her say.” 

“Let’s call it realistic instead.” 

On his eighth visit, Garth stuttered through a request to take Becky out to a movie. 

“Um, not that you’re not great and all, Meg.” 

“You’re not my type, G-man. Have fun you two kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

“But you don’t do anything!” Becky protested. 

Meg stared at her. But of course, she didn’t actually do anything anymore. She had been chaste since she came back, barely touched booze. Cigarettes had become her only vice and she’d even cut back on those when it started feeling like an elephant was standing on her chest. 

“Just don’t get pregnant.” She amended and flopped onto the sofa. Becky left in a hot pink dress and a cloying cloud of perfume. Garth held out his arm for her and they strolled away together. Meg listened to the silence of the apartment. She considered the television, then left it off and walked outside. There was a chill in the air and the grass was damp, but she sat down beside the rangy pole and slid a hand around the thin trunk. 

_Calm is important, said Alistair with a hand in her barbed wire hair, beautiful thing find the blackest center of your flaming anger and there lies stillness and the mastery of pain._

Becky had dragged her to a few yoga classes until the instructor had groped her and Meg had left with blood under her nails. She remembered the deep breathing though. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

There were birds flying overhead, calling to each other and a child down the street shrieking. In. Out. In. Out. The apple tree trembled a little in the wind, thrumming against her hand. It was alive. 

She was alive. 

Meg tilted her head back and opened her eyes to watercolored sky. 

“Ok.” She fell backward into the wet grass. “I hear you. I get it.” 

She was still lying there when Becky got home, full of smiles and twirling. She didn’t ask what Meg was doing just plopped down next to her in the grass. 

“He’s really nice, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah, Becks.” Meg pat her a little on the side. “He’s nice.” 

“He used to be a dentist.” She tucked her chin over her knees, little girl in a grown up dress. “I used to be a dental hygienist. Isn’t that strange?” 

“You were a dental hygienist?” 

“I left after everything with Sam. Lived off my savings while I got my head on straight.” Becky sighed. “I wanted to help people, but I don’t really have a lot of skills in that area. The clinic seemed like a good choice. Organizing, you know?” 

“Yeah.” Becky sometimes alphabetized their herbs when she was nervous. “Good call.” 

“He killed a tooth fairy. That’s how he got into hunting. Can you imagine? Little guy like him, nice and normal. Faced with the supernatural and he just....joins in. Takes up the fight.” 

“Sounds like a knight.” Meg let go of the tree slowly, folding her hands over her stomach. 

“The armor would make him fall over. I think maybe he’s more like a squire.” 

Meg hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on Becky until she wasn’t there constantly. All of a sudden, Meg had to eat dinner alone and fill her off days without Becky’s constant talk and motion. 

She had Becky’s car though and a license. Driving was a refound pleasure. From the first rattling jalopy on souped up bicycle wheels, Meg had loved cars. Rolling down the windows and foot on the gas, the world was only possibilities. 

Sometimes, she pictured just driving away for good. Hot wiring another car, practicing her skills in petty theft to keep herself alive. She could go on for a long time like that if she wasn’t smited from on high. Yet like a homing pigeon, she was forever returning. Circling back to the apartment and Becky and the tree. 

After one long jaunt, she returned to find Garth at their kitchen table, bundled in Becky’s pink bathrobe and sipping a cup of tea. He had dark bags under his eyes, but a smile on his lips. 

“Hey, Meg.” 

“Hello.” She turned on the coffee pot and ran fingers through her hair to coax the windblown strands into something like order. 

“I was looking at your tree yesterday. Becky said you raised it from a seed.” 

“Seemed like the thing to do.” She watched the drip into the pot, urging it to speed along. 

“We had plum trees when I was growing up. Had to prune them every summer. You done that yet?” 

“I’ve read about it, but isn’t it too early?” The coffee was no longer of interest and she turned on him. “You’re supposed to wait until it bears fruit.” 

“Nah, it’s good to do it now. Especially in the fall. I’ll show you.” 

Taking the clipper to the branch made her hands shake. She’d disemboweled a teenage boy with a penknife once. The fragile limb between her blades made her want to weep. 

“Steady.” Garth didn’t touch her hands, only the base of the clipper handles. “You’ve got this.” 

She cut and the branch drifted to the ground. 

_Like this child, Alistar twined their hands together and his mandible opened around her neck, you’re a natural._

“See? Looking healthier already.” Garth picked up the discarded branch. 

“Is it? It looks...diminished.” 

“Nah. Trim off the extra and let it all spread out.” His skinny long fingers waggled at her. “Get good sun and suck the nutrients up. Apples as big as your head.” 

She cut off eight branches in the end, their leaves catching in her hair. Garth gathered all the them and Becky came out as they piled it into their little firepit. A sweet aroma rose from the wood as they drank through a bottle of wine. 

**Tree**

“And I now pronounce you, man and wife. You may kiss the bride.” The Justice of the Peace closed his book as Becky lunged. Garth held his ground while Kevin, who despite a delousing the day before still looked a little homeless, snapped a picture. 

“Should I throw the bouquet?” Becky asked, waving her two peonies around. 

“I’d let it fall on the ground, Becks and I don’t think Kevin here is thinking matrimony at the moment.” She threw the handful of rice she’d shoved in her clutch earlier. “Mazel Tov.” 

“Reception at the IHOP and then off to Aruba!” Garth twirled Becky around. 

“Aruba. Classy.” 

It had been three years since Meg had heard a Winchester voice and she would have been happy going another three. Dean leaned in the doorway, more lines gathered at the corners of his eyes, but otherwise much the same. He looked dusty and tanned and happy. In one hand he had the Impala keys and in the other a bakery box. 

“Thought you couldn’t make it!” Garth crossed to pull Dean into a hard hug. “Nice to see you.” 

“Turned out I was in the area and figured might as well see what a happy couple looks like.” He handed the box to Garth. “Wedding pie. Sam talked me out of cherry, so you’ve got blueberry. Try not to stain your shirt.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Hey, Dean.” Becky put a hand to the small of Garth’s back, standing tall beside him. 

“Never thought I’d see you in a wedding dress.” Dean smiled at her. “Looks better this time around.” 

“Found it in a thrift store.” She smoothed a hand down the side of the off-white cocktail dress. “Second hand dress for a second hand bride.” 

“Well, you look first rate to me.” Dean leaned and brushed a kiss on her cheek. “Sammy sends his best to both of you crazy kids, but he’s bed bound. Broke his leg in two damn places.” 

“You coming to IHOP?” Kevin asked warily, circling behind the rest of them, further back than Meg had managed to get. 

“Nah. Got a few more hours to make before sunset. I’ll walk you out though.” 

Garth and Dean talked shop for a few minutes and Meg leaned against Becky’s car, casual and uninterested. It didn’t work. Soon enough, Dean had left Becky and Garth to stare dreamily at each other and leaned next to her on the car. 

“How’s things?” He asked mildly. 

“They go.” She picked a few stray grains of rice out of her purse. 

“I’d ask how, but I doubt it matters.” He gave her a half-smile. “You sort of came through for us in the end there.” 

“Sort of.” She repeated bitterly. 

“Why Becky?” 

“Where I wound up. And anyway, she’s moving on now. Got the place to myself.” 

“Taking a houseboat down to Aruba. That’ll be a trip to remember.” Dean licked his lips. “Listen, there’s something you can do for us.” 

“Did I ask?” She reached for her cigarettes, sliding one out of the pack. 

“I’m not psyched about you being topside period. We just spent a whole lot of energy making sure we were done with demons. But I figure if it was anyone....anyway. I got to figure you’re aiming for a little redemption, right?” 

“Don’t think that’s any of your business.” Her lighter flickered and sputtered. 

“Fine. But you got an extra bedroom and I’ve got a guy that needs a place to say. Old friend of yours did a real number on him.” With a casual flick, Dean’s lighter was out and catching the tip of her cigarette. The calloused tips of his fingers inches away from her lips. 

_Vicious harlot, her husband screamed as blood streamed down his hand, I’ll break every tooth in your head._

“Sounds like a sad story.” She took the first drag, channeling the smoke upward. “But I’m not taking in strays.” 

“He won’t pee on the carpet. Let’s face it, you got a lot of debt to pay if you ever want to come out close to even. Think of it as a karma boost.” 

“Never seen your good deeds help you out any down the road. If anything, seem to come around and bite you on the ass.” 

“I’m just lucky that way.” Dean shrugged, took the cigarette from her and took one short drag, then settled it back between her fingers. “I’ll send him along with some cash to keep him fed. You watch out for him, get him back on his feet and just maybe you get back on the ally list with us.” 

“I’m not dealing anymore.” She tasted his saliva on the tip, a little sour and boozy. 

“Demon or not, everyone deals in the end.” 

They watched Kevin take another few photos of the happy couple, the gritty brick of the municipal building as a background. All of Becky’s things were already on the houseboat and Meg was on her own again. Abandoned by just the latest in a long line of allies, friends and lovers. She wanted to ask Dean about Castiel, but the question was tied to her tongue with pride. And he would never offer the information unprompted. 

“Send him along. I reserve the right to kick his ass to the curb if I don’t like the cut of his jeans.” 

The delivery didn’t come for another week. The apartment echoed a little, depleted of Becky’s things and the television rattled on endlessly in the background. There was a world outside, but she’d seen much of what it had to offer when she had so much more power and unlimited resources at her disposal. 

When someone got around to knocking on her door, she was in the middle of making scones. There was probably flour streaked across her cheek and her clothes were ratty pajamas, but she wasn’t out to impress anyone. If he didn’t like it, he could fuck off and take his delivery with him. 

“Meg? It’s Sam.” 

She checked through the peephole any way and splashed his face with holy water she’d left in the fridge for that purpose. He wrinkled his nose and wiped it away. 

“You know all the demons are safely locked in Hell now, right?” 

“Arm.” She held up the silver knife. 

“This is ridiculous.” But he let her slice him over a half-dozen similar scars. 

“This is my home. If you think I’m letting you in with anything short of a full body scan, you’ve got another think coming.” 

“I’m just making the delivery.” 

“I notice your leg seems to have healed up nicely.” 

“Oh.” Sam snorted. “Well. I didn’t really want to have flashbacks to the wedding thing.” 

“Only a Winchester could have wedding PTSD. So where is this guy anyway?” 

“Here.” Sam gestured down the hall. “You probably never knew his real name. Nick, this is Meg. Meg, Nick.” 

The flesh of him startled her. The lanky body and broad shoulders and the deep scars on his face. As Lucifer, he had poured honeyed words over her and kept her strung along with the rest of mindless masses. He was her dreams and hopes made flesh. The whispers in the dark that sustained her when even Alistair could not. 

“Say hello.” Sam prompted. 

“Hi.” Nick mumbled, eyes on the carpet. 

“Apparently he’s been a coma for the last few years. When we closed up Hell, it must have cut whatever lingering bond there was...no idea why. He woke up and started talking all about the apocalypse that had never been. Rumors started circulating, odd news stories. Got back to us eventually.” He touched Nick’s elbow gingerly. “He’s lucid most of the time. Pretty docile too. Shouldn’t be much of a burden.” 

“Didn’t think you’d care if I was burdened or not.” 

“Take care of him.” Sam said as if she hadn’t commented. “I’m not sold on this whole idea, but we don’t have the manpower to watch him now. So.” 

“Abdicate responsibility when it gets tough. Good plan.” 

“No, it’s not...” Sam stepped backward, thrusting a thick wad of cash at her. “We’ll call to check in. He likes hot dogs.” 

“Great. We’ll get on like Mary and Rhoda, I’m sure.” 

For such a large man, Sam disappeared surprisingly well. He left a strange scent behind, too sweet and bloody. Death, she realized as she inhaled it. Decomposition and murder. Odors no longer in her daily palette.There was a duffel bag at Nick’s feet, army surplus and she’d guess the clothes inside were probably Winchester specials. 

“I’m making scones.” She turned from him and walked back to the kitchen. “You can watch or you can help.” 

He trailed after her and stood awkwardly next to the table for a few minutes. There was nothing of Lucifer left in him. Lucifer never made himself small or held himself with anything less than perfect grace. There’d been something almost feminine about him that she’d chalked up to angelic origins. 

“Sit.” She ordered when she couldn’t take him looming any longer. 

He hesitated, but eventually the chair slid out and he collapsed onto it. There was coaster shaped like daisy on the table, one of the bits of detritus Becky had left behind her, and he picked idly at one of the petals. That left her stirring with only one eye on her work and one on him. She couldn’t figure if it was the color intrigued him or if he was too emptied out to do anything, but stare. 

Then she opened the preheated oven to put in the baking pan and he was right beside her. She nearly punched him, but he didn’t try to get any closer to her. Instead he held out his hands, absorbing the warmth. 

“Nothing is gonna get done if I leave the door open, bucko.” She closed it slowly, waiting for him to snap. He just watched her dolefully. “If you’re cold, go put on a sweater. I’ll make some coffee.” 

He wandered out of the room. When he was out of sight she rested her head on the fridge. 

_I’m lost, the angel told her as he wove her pretty poems, and I keep coming home to you._

Apparently scones spoke across all barriers. When they were cool and she set one in front of him, he took generous bites and clutched at his coffee mug with his free hand. He was bundled up in a sweater that must have once belonged to Sam (a vessel in a vessel’s raiments, maybe there was irony in there somewhere). It hung over his hands and nearly to his knees. 

“What am I going to do with you?” She asked the open air. 

“I’ll be good.” He answered in a little boy voice, hair grown too shaggy falling into his eyes. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t send you back to the brothers Grimm.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Good.” He sipped his coffee. 

“Good? You didn’t like them?” She frowned. Not that she was a huge fan, but decent people seemed to like them. Nick might have been decent once. Hard to know now. 

“There’s no room for me.” He shrugged and pressed the coffee mug to his forehead. 

“Huh.” She picked out a warm strawberry and chewed it over. “Well one thing I have is room.” 

He helped her make up Becky’s bed with sky blue sheets. Though devoid of Becky’s things, the walls were still a cheery green with purple trim and the furniture white. Nick didn’t register any complaints. He crawled under the blankets still in his baggy sweatshirt and jeans. 

“The bathroom is down the hall.” She switched off the lights. “If you wake up before me, don’t eat my Cocoa Puffs. The Weetabix are fair game though.” 

She didn’t sleep. She waited in the dark, thumb on the trigger of her switchblade. No matter what the Winchesters thought, she wasn’t going to relax until he proved himself harmless. One night of lost sleep was a cheap price to pay for her life. 

Nick still wasn’t awake when she would normally get up for work, so she showered with a chair jammed under the door handle and made cinnamon toast. He emerged barefoot and half his hair sticking up the wrong way, waiting in the doorway like a lost dog. 

“Awesome.” She handed him a plate and this time he sat down without a command. “Look, I have to go to work today. You can stay here or come with me, but if you come with, you’re going to have to stay in the lobby and not freak anyone out.” 

He stared blankly at her. 

“I’m giving you a choice.” She reiterated. “Here or the frankly disease infected waiting room of a clinic?” 

He thought it over through the entire slice of toast and half a mug of coffee which still spent most of its time pressed to his forehead. She was beginning to think he had a permanent headache. Judging by the lines etched between his eyebrows, it was entirely possible. She didn’t give him an easy out. 

“Clinic.” He said eventually. 

“You need to not look like a hobo then. Go take a shower. You’ve got toiletries?” 

“Hotel size.” He lifted one shoulder in a parody of a shrug. 

“Those sweaty bills better contain some hundreds. We’ve got to kit you out. Ok. Shower, try to dress like a respectable human being.” 

She chose the pink scrubs that showed a hint of her cleavage. Dr. Mayhew would appreciate the extra sugar if she was trying to stash a mental patient in the waiting room for nine hours. The shower ran for longer than she expected, but not long enough to make her nervous. When he emerged in a puff of steam, he actually looked normal. The scars were still there, pinked from the heat, but the hangdog eyes countered them. He’d put on jeans that were worn and loose and a few too many layers. Nothing that would raise too many alarm bells. 

“Great. Let’s go, Sparky.” 

Becky had offered to leave her the car while she was away, but Meg had determined that it was time to invest in her own vehicle. She didn’t have enough money to get the kind of low bodied sleekness she wanted, but she liked the shape of the new Charger and it looked good in black. 

“Nice.” Nick offered when he slid into the passenger seat, his first entirely unprovoked comment. 

“Ok. You can live.” She decided. 

It turned out Nick and the clinic were a perfect fit. When he got tired and weird, he could zone out with a tattered copy of People in his lap and no one bothered him. When he was fully present, he would talk to the little kids running riot and fetch tiny cups of water for their mothers. He rarely requested to be left home after that first day, usually up before Meg to make coffee. 

“You’re good at this.” He told her one night as she scrubbed bile and blood from her hands in the staffroom sink. 

“Only because I’m good at not giving a shit.” She watched green and pink swirl down the drain. 

“Yeah.” Nick never directly contradicted her. It was a trait that had started out nice, but got grating after a while. In this case though, she’d take it. 

“Get to sleep in tomorrow.” She blotted her hands on a paper towel. “Day off.” 

“Oh.” He tilted his head a little, a lost gesture that prickled over her skin. 

“Buy you a haircut and some new clothes that weren’t milled through the brother Grimm reject pile first.” 

Despite the terror written on every inch of his body, Nick didn’t so much as sneeze during the haircut. He held himself in one tense line and waited it out. The hairdresser didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, chatting amiably about local politics with the girl next to her. Meg saw it though, watched him warily from a few feet away. 

“Was it the metal or the sound?” She asked, brushing the last stray hairs from his shoulders as they emerged blinking into daylight. 

“In Heaven, nothing grows. Everything is as it has always been.” Nick sank his hands into his pockets. “Change is poison. He was death to them.” 

“So more of a metaphorical fear then.” 

“My wife used to cut my hair.” He said wistfully. “She always left it too long in the front and the back of my neck after she shaved it.” 

Meg didn’t have a reply to that. They drove back in silence though Nick perked up a little when they passed a bowling alley. She rolled her eyes. 

“Let me guess, Thursday night bowling league with the boys?” 

“Tuesday nights with men and women.” He picked at a loose thread at the bottom of his shirt. “We hadn’t gone since the baby was born.” 

“Too bad.” She put her foot to the gas, let the wind whip everything else away. 

Apparently after severe trauma, the safest thing for a man to watch was stand up comedy. Nick didn’t actually laugh at the television, but he would watch from a nest of blankets. Sometimes he closed his eyes during the commercials. Meg usually left him to it and turned to the internet for her new primary source of entertainment. 

Reluctantly, for the first time since she’d returned, Meg read the newspapers. There was still war and famine and pain. She clicked on link after link, not sure what she was chasing after. The way to the afterlife was shut, yet people still got married, had babies and murdered each other in messy ways. The world was unaffected. 

There were traces of supernatural activity. A wild dog attack here, a rash of unusual suicides there. She considered them, fingers tapping against her thigh. Eventually, she pasted the links into an email and sent them on without a note of explanation to the email address scrawled on one of the dollar bills Sam had given her.  
Eventually she got a reply, a single link to an article about a grave desecration. It wasn’t a thank you, but what did she care about gratitude. It became a sort of hobby, playing spot the monster in the daily rags. 

“What are you looking for?” Nick finally asked after a month of her sitting bent over her laptop. 

“Things that go bump in the night.” 

He took the seat across from her and picked up a highlighter. 

“Can I help?” 

The internet was too much for him, but a stack of newspapers kept him busy for hours. The horror on the pages never triggered him, his focus too narrowed on the bizarre. Their shared hobby took over the living room until Becky’s neatly painted walls were riddled with tack marks and tape residue. 

“There’s a pattern.” Nick stood back from the glorious mess. 

“It’s random. It’s always random in the end.” She twisted her hair back in a bun. “It just feels personal.” 

“I was good at statistics.” He rolled his shoulders like a prizefighter. “I’ll correlate.” 

He wasn’t good with the internet, but Excel was his bread and butter. Meg left him the computer and wandered outside. Spring had come again, the apple tree popping in pink blossoms. The petals gathered around the base in various stages of mouldering. She had to dunk under a few branches to wrap her hands around the trunk. 

_Hold my hand, said her mother as she coughed up blood, remember that I love you._

There was a pattern. Of course there was. Nick fumbled through an email to the boys and got a phone call on her cell in return. She didn’t bother asking how Dean got her number, only passed the hunk of plastic to him and let the words flow over her. If Heaven and Hell were shut, then maybe all the uglies and ghosties could be sent along their way too. Maybe there would be nothing left, but the mundane lives of ordinary mortals who didn’t know that death had become a permanent dirt nap. 

She stretched out on the couch and tried to imagine the cessation of her own existence. One day, whether by the will of a higher power or not, this body would cease to breath and all the centuries of memory would be lost with it. All would fall into darkness. 

Maybe she should write a memoir. 

“Dean wants to talk to you.” Nick handed her back the phone. 

“Yeah?” She settled the phone against her ear. 

“He sounds good. With it.” 

“Oh, yeah. He’s a regular poster child for mental health.” Nick drifted back over to the newspapers, absently tidying the piles. 

“It’s good what you’re doing for him. He needs a purpose.” 

“Nurse Browning at your service.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. Her fingers smelled like tilled earth. 

“He’s alive.” Dean said gravely. She let her hand drop back to the sofa, slow as a falling leaf. “De-angel’d and figuring himself out, but alive. I thought you might want to know.” 

He hung up before she could dig up a response. 

“You ok?” Nick watched her, the light falling at just the right angle to catch the shine of his scars. 

“Sure.” She barked a laugh. “Peachy keen.” 

He crossed the space and knelt beside her. Slowly as if she was a wild beast that might startle, he folded her hand between his own. She let him keep it. They stayed like that for a long time. 

“We should go bowling.” She declared before she went to bed. “I’ve never been.” 

“I can teach you.” A smile dawned on his face. “It’s not hard.” 

A week later, Meg toed the waxed line of the floor and slide the ball down the alley in a perfect strike. Her aim was still excellent and her eyesight strong. The clatter of pins gave her a shiver of satisfaction. There were eyes on her, men judging the curve of her body in tight jeans and rented shoes. Nick hovered nearby, ready and wary. 

“I don’t need protecting.” She hammered down a second strike. 

“Everyone should have someone to watch their back.” He handed her a bottle of water. 

“You couldn’t swat a fly right now.” 

He took that information in and stepped up to the arrows, letting loose the heavy ball. It wavered, but struck and brought them to a tie. 

“Then I guess I’ll have to get better.” 

He started going to a therapist. 

“What can you possibly tell her that’ll help?” 

“I talk about my family.” Nick cut out an article to mail to the Winchesters. “I talk about loss and love.” 

“Does it help?” 

He didn’t answer. A month later he had a job though. Nothing terribly exciting, just a little accounting job for a string of local restaurants. He worked during the day and made friends with the manager of one of the restaurants. They went out drinking sometimes on Friday nights. Meg went with them once, but bars never had grown back on her. 

To fill the time between work and sleep, she took up running. It startled her, how breathless and achy she was at the end of her first attempt. This body was strong and trim, but no longer in shape. Unacceptable. She ran every morning, further and further until the blood pounded in her ears. 

“Does it help?” Nick asked when she came home limping. 

“My ass has never been perkier, don’t you think?” 

“I-um.” He flushed and she escaped to the shower. 

Summer wore on, her legs grew harder and Nick started taking anti-depressants. There were no signs of fruit on the apples branches, but she did come out one day to find Nick standing amid the leaves with a furrow of concentration between his already creased brows. 

“What?” She resisted the impulse to tear him away from the tender twigs. 

“Aphids.” He opened his hand and showed her a black dot. “Damn things will get in everywhere in a garden.”

_And if thine eye offends ye, said the priest as he helped pile wood at her feet and the torch was held aloft, you must cleanse it, pluck it out and cast it from thee._

“I’ll have to spray it. They’ve got a few high test chemicals that’ll do the trick.” 

“Or you could do it naturally.” He squashed another between his thumb and forefinger. “Plant some morning glory and seed them with ladybugs. Ladybugs will eat the aphids.” 

“Circle of life.” 

They both took trowels to the earth, sowing a row of blue flowers. The ladybugs churned in their netted bag, ready to get to their hungry work. 

“They called him Lightbringer once.” Nick stroked the velvet of a petal. “But I remember that his fire was cold.” 

“Blue.” She sat back on her haunches. “Like a fire dying over coals. Like fury.” 

“He wasn’t angry. Not really. He was impossibly, unbearably sad. My pastor used to say that Hell was the absence of God’s love. Maybe that weighed on him more than most.” 

“It should.” There was dirt lodged under her nails, crescents of crusted brown. “He was the first to love Him. Hell hath no fury like an archangel scorned. He would have burned us all just to have a second of His attention.” 

“I don’t hate him anymore.” Nick tilted his head back to the sky. “I think I nearly feel pity.” 

“You should. That would be a better revenge.” 

“What about you?” 

“I don’t pity him. I don’t hate him.” She shrugged. “He was a force of nature, not a person. Whatever I did in his name? That was my choice. Team Free Will all the way.” 

When she set the ladybugs free, they flew in all directions. One landed just on the tip of her nose and lingered there. 

 

**Harvest**

It happened without warning as such things often do. The shift had been hectic, but there was grocery shopping to be done. While she was checking out, Becky called to tell her that they would be docking soon for a few weeks stay. Meg listened as Becky made plans, making a few noises when there was a break in breath. 

The sun made its final push above the horizon just as she walked in the front door. Nick was reading a newspaper, two cups of coffee steaming on the table. She hung up with Becky and wrapped her hands around the mug. 

“How was your shift?” 

“I was bitten by a rabid toddler.” She held up her bandaged wrist. “And then I cleaned up urine.” 

“You know how to live. Bathroom is all yours.” 

She finished her coffee in a bath, the hot water up to her chin. There was a crack in the grout that needed fixing. Distantly, she heard Nick leave with the front door shutting and locking behind him. Too tired to run, she drew on cutoffs and a loose t-shirt over her damp skin. It was hot outside, the summer flexing its muscles. 

The branches of her tree radiated proudly outward now. She stooped beneath them to cup the trunk in her hands. So many times bigger than the seed that had begun it. The meditation came easily to her now, the departure of her body and the cessation of thought. In the shelter of its branches, she was only breath. 

The doorbell brought her back to herself. The obnoxious chime almost didn’t register as their own until it rang out a second time. She palmed her switchblade off the counter, before opening the door a crack. 

“I know I’m late on keeping the promise.” Castiel stood outside her door, a pizza box in his hands. “But there were extenuating circumstances.” 

“You-” She began, but the sentence had no end. 

“You may splash and cut me if you wish. Though I believe Dean killed the last shapeshifter last year.” 

His hair was disheveled and stubble grew on his cheeks. There was no ill fitting suit or laughable trenchcoat. He had on jeans and a v-neck t-shirt with sunglasses snagged at the center. The solemn slice of his mouth and the earnest blue of his eyes were just the same. 

“Just...get in here.” She stepped away from the door and he brushed by her as he came in. He no longer smelled like grace and dust and electricity. There was a faint citrusy scent and the tang of sweat. His skin was warm and pliable. Dean had told the truth. 

“I wasn’t sure what you wanted on it.” He set the pie down on a counter. “I got plain.” 

“Why now?” She demanded. 

“I only just found out you were alive a week ago. There were some things I was obligated to do before I could get away.” He licked his lips, chapped as ever. “This body suits you. How has mortality been going for you?” 

“Don’t take this the wrong way.” She told him as wrapped on hand around the back of his neck. “But I don’t want to chat at the moment.” 

He had gotten better at kissing. His hands settled at her waist without hesitation, the pad of his thumb tracing small circles over her hip. Every nerve ending buzzed awake as the kiss slipped into a messy promise of more. 

“I have a bedroom.” She pulled away reluctantly, one hand in a clamp around his wrist. “It contains a bed.” 

“I look forward to seeing it.” 

He bounced a little against the mattress, his legs splayed and his face cracked wide for her to read. She took him like that with his pants around his ankles and her shirt rucked up over her breasts. Though she hadn’t had partners, she hadn’t stinted on learning the nooks and crannies of her flesh. She knew what felt good, what would bring her to the cusp and back. Castiel watched her with a reverence that verged on embarrassing, his hands trying to be everywhere at once. 

Neither of them last long. She collapsed against him, burying her face in his neck. He embraced her with his entire body, kicking free of his jeans to tangle their legs together. 

“I punched Dean when he told me you were alive.” He confessed into the tangles of her hair. “I’ve been training. It left a substantial bruise. I now believe I let him off too easily.” 

“I would’ve liked to have seen that.” 

“Perhaps you can punch him next time you see him. That would probably be more satisfying.” 

She rolled the left, taking him with her and asked the only question that mattered. 

“Are you staying?” 

“Yes.” 

They ate the pizza in bed, leaving greasy smears over their skin. He kissed her neck with just a hint of teeth and let her scratch welts down his back. They tumbled together until she was beneath him. 

“Can I?” He sank down between her legs. 

“Clarence, you have full permission to do that anytime.” 

“The nickname is no longer appropriate. I’ve lost my wings entirely.” 

“You finally watched the movie?” She ran a hand through his hair, taking pleasure in mussing it still further. 

“I’ve seen it several times.” He kissed the inside of her thigh. “I confess, I was surprised you had watched it.” 

“Everyone’s seen it. You can’t escape it.” She watched the point of his tongue find its target and gasped. 

The second time they came together, she stayed pressed against the bed. He moved liquid smooth and steady, holding her gaze as if looking away would kill him. She looked right back, memorizing the way he bit his lip and the deep groan he made when he came. 

He slept beside her afterward, trusting and fragile. She curled around him, touched her lips to the back of his neck. When she woke, their positions had reversed and his arm rested just under her breasts and his lips trailed over her shoulder. 

“You have freckles.” He told her in a pleased rumble. 

She hadn’t shared a bed from time out of memory, but she had time to grow used to it. Castiel had said he would stay and he’d never broken a promise to her before. Outside her window, the apple tree danced in a passing breeze. On one high branch, difficult to see with the naked eye, the first green hint of an apple began to swell.


End file.
